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Super Bowl Follies: Ads Good and Bad

Best effects: Cadillac – Wave in the Desert
My jaw dropped when Cadillac’s Wave in the Desert spot began, with the car bursting through a wall of water and carrying that water with it with the help of some of the best-looking compositing I’ve seen yet. The shot selection is superb, the music is just right, and the blending of live action and computer-generated imagery is certainly state-of-the-art. Creating effects where water looks sometimes metallic and sometimes like tiny droplets, and using Discreet Flame and just about everything else they could get their hands on, LA-based visual effects and design company A52 senior producer Scott Boyajan and his team outdid themselves this time, showing who’s really king of the compositors circa 2004. Wow.

Goat Again: The White House Drug Police
Here's the spot that has my vote for Most Likely to Have the Opposite Intended Effect. There they go again, our paternalistic government trying to get our kids to stop taking drugs with its latest squandering of $2.3 million in 30 seconds. First, allow me to compliment the idea of time-twisting, where the spot is edited and played in reverse, all to support the line, “Life doesn’t rewind.” And the horrific, brainwashing sound track has all kinds of nightmarish sounds buried into it – an excellent job of audio editing. “Jessica, we need to talk,” says mom in the spot’s tag line as she displays a little baggie she found in the kid’s stuff. But the problem is, the previous 25 seconds are about the best advertisement in favor of getting stoned I’ve ever seen. It looks like a lot of partying, rowdiness, and oh, yeah, well, a trip to the toilet for a few wretches – but hey, that’s part of the fun for the teen bunch. And now, we see both drinking and smoking pot blamed for the ruin of our youth, while just pot was the demon last year. I guess pot turned out to be not quite as dangerous as the government told us "we all thought" last year, so its evil partner alcohol had to be added to the mix this time around. Who are these government dweebs trying to kid with their multi-billion propaganda budget? You would think they could at least get someone to produce their spots who can lay down a decent piece of propaganda. Again this year, here’s the goat of the Super Bowl advertisers, the bumbling U.S. government, trying to steer kids back to the straight-and-narrow, but inadvertently encouraging them to get drunk and smoke dope. Pathetic.
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Best propaganda we didn’t get to see
There was one ad we didn’t see, a brilliant propaganda piece that was the winner of a contest sponsored by activist organization Moveon.org, showing children slaving away at awful jobs so they can someday repay the enormous trillion-dollar deficit racked up by Bush and his cronies in Washington. The CBS network, close friend of Republicans dead, near-dead, and barely alive, picks its favorites once again, deciding not to air the spot because, well, they own the network and it’s their printing press and they’ll print whatever they want, especially when the Republicans are still in charge. What I want to know is, what’s wrong with this Moveon.org that they can’t find anything better to do with $2.3 million than fritter it away on a Super Bowl spot? What were they thinking? I think CBS saved this airhead organization from itself! They’d get more publicity if they just piled up the $2.3 million in one-dollar-bills and burned the entire heap on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. One thing’s for sure – if our government wants some first-rate propaganda spots, it should give the creator of this winning spot a call, pronto. (See the spot here: www.bushin30seconds.org.)

Best breast
And while we’re on the subject of our government, I have to laugh at our esteemed FCC chairman Michael Powell, the hands-off deregulator, threatening to step in and fine that wicked network for reminding us what a floppy middle-aged breast looks like. Indeed, Super Bowl XXXVIIII will be long remembered for the XXXVIII frames (yes, there were exactly 38 frames – we editors count these things) of partially-exposed, pastie-covered boob sneaked in there for all to see by Janet Jackson and accomplice Justin Timberlake. Even though we didn’t even get to see the whole breast and all its accompanying components, this FCC protector of American eyeballs wants to scare those broadcasters into never, ever, letting us see anything like that ever again. I mean, there were children in the audience who saw this abomination. That breast could seriously hurt them. And no matter what, let’s protect the children. But it’s just ludicrous to think of the mighty CBS top dogs, laughing in their corner offices right now at this limp-wristed threat of fining the network $27,000 for this “crime.” Such a fine, even if drawn to its highest potential, could only be legally applied to CBS’s 16 owned-and-operated stations, resulting in a total fine of $432,000. According to my calculations, that’s equal to exactly 5.63 seconds of Super Bowl air time. Woo. I bet they’re scared now.

Best editing: Van Helsing
Van Helsing – a Universal film starring Hugh Jackman that will debut this summer, presented a spectacular set of images and edits that is a feast for the eyes and ears and was made even more dramatic because it was one of the few Super Bowl spots broadcast in true HDTV. I didn’t much care for its horror/terror content, with beasties and werewolves jumping around, but was impressed with its dramatic use of flash frames and quick cuts that built this spot to a dazzling climax. I especially liked the sound bites used here, and their timing as well. I also noticed a near-perfect use of quick fades to black in some places, dissolves in others, and quick cuts in the best places. Take a look a this one a few times, and you’ll see how the spot’s editors have an intimate understanding of when to cut, dissolve and fade. Perfect, in-the-slot editing.

Editor's Note: To read a review of the technical aspects of the Super Bowl broadcast, click here.

Charlie White, your humble storytellerDigital Media Net Executive Producer Charlie White has been writing about new media and digital video since it was the laughingstock of the television industry. A technology journalist and columnist since 1994, White is also an Emmy-winning producer, video editor, broadcast industry consultant and shot-calling television director who has worked in broadcasting since 1974. Talk back -- Send Chazz a note at cwhite@digitalmedianet.com.

Read more of Charlie White's editorials by clicking here.

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